Isa 6:8, Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" 
	This passage has a great deal to say to each of us. It has become a very fundamental truth which has stirred the core of my being in a number of ways. It has also stirred many who have heard the voice of God calling in their hearts. Oswald Chambers was moved by it as he relates in the collection of his works called, My Utmost for His Highest.
	Quote, God did not address the call to Isaiah; Isaiah overheard God saying, “Who will go for us?” The call of God is not for the special few, it is for everyone. Whether or not I hear God’s call depends upon the state of my ears; and what I hear depends upon my disposition. “Many are called but few are chosen,” that is, few prove themselves the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ whereby their disposition has been altered and their ears unstopped, and they hear the still small voice questioning all the time, “Who will go for us?” It is not a question of God singling out a man and saying, “Now, you go.” God did not lay a strong compulsion on Isaiah; Isaiah was in the presence of God and he overheard the call, and realized that there was nothing else for him but to say, in conscious freedom, “Here am I, send me.” Get out of your mind the idea of expecting God to come with compulsions and pleadings. When our Lord called His disciples there was no irresistible compulsion from outside. The quiet passionate insistence of His “Follow Me” was spoken to men with every power wide awake. If we let the Spirit of God bring us face to face with God, we too shall hear something akin to what Isaiah heard, the still small voice of God; and in perfect freedom will say, “Here am I, send me.” End quote.
	Missionaries, such as Anders and Lori have heard that voice of God calling forth "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" As with many, countless people before them, including the Prophet Isaiah, they have responded. But that call is not just for the mission field of other countries. It is for the glory of God in every city, town, village, district, and farm throughout this world. Hank and Arlene chose to visit and to help in Thailand for a season, but their true calling is in Lompoc, in the midst of their family and friends. 
Each of us must surrender ourselves to the call of God. 
And, before we can do that, we must each surrender to the mighty working of the Holy Spirit, through the ministry of the Word of God to be brought into the presence of God. There is a necessity to desire to come into a living relationship with Jesus Christ. 
It is impossible to hear the quiet, still voice of God if we are not in His immediate presence and listening to His every Word. That is only possible as we relinquish our thoughts and our ideas and our plans and our purposes to His will in our lives. As we are no longer so set in what we think God should do, we will find our hearts open to that which God desires to fully accomplish to His Glory. Our lives will become those instruments of His Grace and Mercy and Love which will manifest the very heart of Christ in life, (Luke 22:42)…not My will, but Thine be done.
	In this reality, we are encouraged as we read in Deut 30:11-16, "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?'  "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. 
	Many of us shirk from the thought of accepting the call of God into our lives. We are frightened at the extreme cost and the difficulties and the trials that come with a full and true identification with Our Lord Jesus Christ. We prefer not to make waves and to keep a low profile. We avoid, at all expenses, any conflict or occasion that would require us to take a stand for the name of Jesus Christ on this earth. We tell ourselves, in attempted justification, that we are too timid and too shy and unable to speak clearly when put on the spot. We will quietly and intently pray for the Lord’s will to be done in our lives, but will refuse to obey when it involves our discomfort and our getting messed up in the muck and mire of the spiritual battle that rages around us. We prefer the calm and sedate lifestyle that does not involve personal engagement with our family and friends and associates in a challenge to their lifestyles. Professing our love for them, we are willing to see them suffer the anguish and the extreme torments of hell, rather than to love them into heaven at all costs. 
	When we are truly listening to the voice of God, truly wanting to serve Him to every extent in our lives, we will truly express the love that fills His heart. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 
This is no quiet cliché. This is not simply a verse that is easy to memorize. It is the heart of God which called forth in the presence of Isaiah. It is the call that every true missionary relishes in his or her heart. It burns forth with every effort to proclaim it to every person in every place. It is the call with which a true minister wrestles night and day in anguish over the flock of the Lord’s pasture. It is the anthem that every Christian parent should hold forth each day with each child in prayer and supplication and spiritual anguish before the Lord. It is the heart that every Christian, in every place should have when we tell others that we truly do love them.
	We have all been called to be missionaries, wherever we are. We minister in life, this very heart of God’s love. Christ, Himself, gives us no other option, as He so directs us in what we call the Great Commission. Mark 16:15+16 …"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. 
	We close this morning with another quote from Oswald Chambers. When we speak of the call of God, we are apt to forget the most important feature, viz., the nature of the One Who calls. There is the call of the sea, the call of the mountains, the call of the great ice barriers, but these calls are only heard by the few. The call is the expression of the nature from which it comes, and we can only record the call if the same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not of our nature…
	The call of God is not the echo of my nature; my affinities and personal temperament are not considered. As long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shall never hear the call of God. But when I am brought into relationship with God, I am in the condition Isaiah was in. Isaiah’s soul was so attuned to God by the tremendous crisis he had gone through that he recorded the call of God to his amazed soul. The majority have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says. To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered. End quote. 
	Let us pray that we are all profoundly altered in the exact same manner as Isaiah. That when we hear God’s call, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?", we will have the same response. "Here am I. Send me!" So be it!

This morning’s benediction is 1 Chron 29:11-13. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from Thee, and Thou dost rule over all, and in Thy hand is power and might; and it lies in Thy hand to make great, and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious name. Amen.